My mum has died – and there is one kind of response I can’t stand | Polly Hudson

The platitudes, euphemisms and cliches are excruciating. But the people who say nothing at all are the worst Luckily, I already knew having a comic thought at a tragic moment is a natural stress response, or I might have worried. My mum has died, making me an orphan – and what first popped into my head was how annoyed Larry David would be. In Curb Your Enthusiasm, when Marty Funkhouser’s mother’s wheelchair was run over by a car, he proclaimed himself an orphan. David informed him he was too ...

By Polly Hudson